Although Jon Ippolito's work includes computer- and Internet-based projects, it takes inspiration less from the history of electronic media than from conceptual and process art of the 1960s and 1970s, whose dematerialized objects and decentralized practices prefigured many of the innovations of the

"digital revolution." Accordingly, the focus for Ippolito's artworks has been a process rather than a medium: since 1992 he and fellow artists Janet Cohen and Keith Frank have engaged in a series of "adversarial collaborations" that investigate the conflicts inherent in the collaborative process. This preoccupation has led them to experiment in materials ranging from cement to photographs to words, and in scales from individual Polaroids to room-sized installations to events that span the mid-Manhattan subway system.

With this range of techniques and formats, it was not hard for Cohen, Frank, and Ippolito to adapt their work to a virtual form suitable to the World Wide Web, especially since their emphasis on the collision between different ideas and intents has an obvious parallel in the Internet's own flame wars and communication breakdowns. Their Web project Agree to Disagree Online (fig. 7a, b, which can be seen at [http://www.three.org]) aims to capture the shape of a conversation among the three artist-collaborators. The conversation begins with a single inflammatory assertion - "In the future, books will be replaced by maps" - and progresses statement by statement as each participant responds in turn. The viewer can follow animated arrows that trace the shifting positions and alliances of the three collaborators or zoom out to navigate digressions that branch to such topics as Watergate, computer-operating systems, and the efficacy of the Evelyn Wood speed-reading course. Ippolito and his colleagues are particularly interested in the computer's ability to alter the perception of time. Whereas a computer allows the viewer of Agree to Disagree Online to reduce the conversation to one statement at a time, the algorithms driving the Self-Curating Exhibition, an individual work by Ippolito on a theme similar to that of his collaborative projects, allow the viewer to observe several years' worth of decisions in a matter of minutes. This program simulates the hanging of a group show in a virtual gallery. Each "artist" is a computer program designed to propose a particular kind of work (e.g., modest-sized paintings or grandiose sculpture) with a particular attitude (e.g., leaving plenty of room for others or dominating the space). Once installation has begun, those "artists" whose works garner attention are given more chances to install pieces; artworks that are ignored are removed. The viewer can thus let loose a selection of artist-programs in the space and then "fast forward" to an arbitrary time in the future to view the installation resulting from any number of iterations of this competitive process.